[ Thanks to James
Maguire for this link. ]
“Ubuntu’s Unity shell for GNOME first saw general
release as the Ubuntu Netbook Edition in the 10.10 release in
October 2010. Two weeks later, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth
announced that the next release of Ubuntu would use Unity instead
of the modified GNOME shell of previous releases.“The criticism began instantly, and, given new life by the alpha
release of Ubuntu 11.04 and articles about what to expect in open
source software in 2011, has hardly stopped since.“Listening to voices inside Ubuntu, you could be forgiven for
wondering what the criticism is about. The blueprint for Unity
describes it as a shell “that can match and exceed the OS X user
interface in regards to visual effects” on desktop computers that
can also be used with modifications on other hardware platforms
such as netbooks. In other words, Unity is simply the continuation
of Ubuntu’s ongoing emphasis on usability and interface design.“Nor is Unity a complete departure from GNOME. As Ubuntu
community manager Jono Bacon emphasizes, “Ubuntu is a GNOME
distribution”